


Lonely Hearts

by blackbubbletea



Category: Mighty Boosh (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-24
Updated: 2012-08-24
Packaged: 2017-11-12 19:48:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/495028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackbubbletea/pseuds/blackbubbletea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Howard Moon's not an easy man to get over, but solace can be found in unexpected places.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lonely Hearts

“Bailey’s, if you please, sir.”

He never would have thought it was capable to feel this miserable in such a beautiful dress. Poor dress. It had never been made to see such sorrow. It was a dress for happy days, for kisses and champagne and rice thrown by well-wishers. But no, not anymore. Not for Gregg. Might as well just throw these old rags away. The watercolors, too. He didn’t fancy coming home to those tiny eyes looking at him, not one bit. Once so full of chocolatey love and funky soul just waiting to be let out – nurtured, like a tiny jazzy butterfly. Now they would just pierce into him, down through to the core of his slippery little soul, saying, “No, I don’t love you. I’ll never love you.”

The nice man at the counter passed him a glass of creamy consolation, and when he sipped it, it was good and it was familiar. It was the home he never should have left. Why ever had he thought that here, up here with the dry people and the air breathers, that he would ever have found a place? This wasn’t for him. He belonged down in his waters. That was the safe place; the good place. Once he made it back, he would never leave again. Even if it would be dreadful lonely without The Funk to keep him company. 

Used him, that weedy little bastard had. Used him for his funk-juice and all the opportunities it offered. That was all he had wanted. Not love. And why should he? He could already get plenty of that from pretty, pretty Miss Blue Eyes. How was he supposed to compete with that? All that poofy black hair and everything that had ever sparkled stuck onto that lithe little body. He was just a rusty old bucket of fish in comparison.

He sighed and took another long sip of his drink. Creamy. A beautiful light brown. Serene. And then the red stain of his lipstick interrupting it along the rim of the glass. Hardly any point in that anymore. Who cared how beautiful he looked, if it wasn’t going to be enough anyways?

Then there was another sigh, except it hadn’t come from him. When he turned to look there was a lady, and even though there was an empty seat between him they might have been sitting in just the same place, sad as she looked. Pretty lady, all done up nice with a fancy coat and a scarf round her head. Cigarette in one of those long holders, and her eyes under the makeup were like the tight blue jeans Slash used to wear. But he couldn’t think about that right now, he’d be liable to turn himself inside out with sad.

She was lonely too, just like him. He could tell. The way she rested her chin in her hand, heavy, heavy, with a thousand pounds of potent disappointment. And maybe it wasn’t so nice, but he felt a little less bad, knowing that he wasn’t the only person in the world with the sadness weighing them down. But still lonely, so lonely, and he thought that one lonely person ought to talk to another, so he did a maneuver and then he was in the seat next to her and he could smell her perfume. Sweet and made of old flowers that had been in the sun too long.

“Men?” he ventured. But it always was. It always was men. Even when you weren’t in love with them – it _always_ was men. 

She looked up at him from her drink. Pretty, pink drink. Like lipsticks dissolved in seltzer. “Oh honey, you don’t even know the half of it.”

“I’d wager I do, miss. I’d wager I know…at least three-fourths of it.” Because no matter who you were, wasn’t it always the same? Watching your heart go skittering about in little pieces on the floor. And those damn tiny eyes. Uncaring. Unforgiving. Just leaving Gregg out in the cold, just like that.

“You had your heart broken too, huh sugarlips?”

He liked that. He liked that she made nicknames.

“I- I did. I did, sir. Ma’am. Very much so. H-he stomped on it. Many times.”

“Oh, _men_! Why are they such _scum_?” she lamented. “I offered him everything! I’ve got money. I could provide! He would never have had to do anything, just be my luscious little love muffin! It would have been enough!”

He shook his head. “Not for some. Some just…they don’t see what they got.” But he said that to make her feel better. He didn’t know the circumstances. In his case, Howard had seen what he’d got. He’d seen it was either a pretty little lady, or a moldy old lake monster. Couldn’t nobody blame him for his decision. Anybody would have made it. He steadied himself. Wouldn’t do no good to cry. Not now. He took another sip of his drink. One thing that was nice. Nice and creamy. Never figure how they made it so good.

“I just…” She followed suit, lifting her pretty pink drink and slurping it up. Nails were long. Painted. He could have painted his nails. Painted them red, would have matched the lipstick. He never thought of these things. Maybe if he had…maybe things would be different. Maybe Gregg would have been the prettiest.

“It’s worse than that, though! You hardly _understand_.” The way her voice said things, it really made you believe them. He believed her. He wanted to listen.

“What happened?”

“I paid him! I _paid_ him! And certainly, yes, he was in the business, but I thought…I just thought…we had such chemistry! I can’t even _express_ it. I’d never seen anyone fondle balls with such _fervency_. I thought that it had to be love!”

He thought about her words. She gave a man money to touch her. He didn’t even have to do that. Though he didn’t have any money in the first place. Still, he thought it wasn’t fair. Why should a pretty lady, why should she have to pay a man? She was prettier than Old Gregg. Yes, he would admit that. He wasn’t so vain. She was glamorous, like a movie star. Even a movie star lady would have to give a man dollars for love? He couldn’t believe it. Who was even allowed to have love, these days?

“Well. Miss. I- I think that…whatever man that was, must’ve been a damn fool.”

“Oh, _sweetheart_.” Her thin eyebrows made funny curves. “That is so wonderful of you to say. But oh God, is it also a lie.”

“It isn’t. It isn’t, it’s true.” 

Her blue jean eyes looked him up and down and east and west. “I wish everyone had a heart like yours,” she said, and he knew that it was really the thing that she thought, as well. “But no.” And she shook her head, pretty shiny brown hair bouncing back and forth and back and forth.

He had to touch it. So shiny. It ate all the light inside the little bar. It ate it all up and said, “This is mine now, and I’ll show it off however I like!” And when his fingers, webbed and coarse and not the right kind to touch such pretty hair, met with it, it was like a silky explosion. It crashed over him in waves, and oh how he wished he could have that thin, soft, rollercoaster of follicle paradise instead of a briny tangle of seaweed.

“Your hair is made of magic,” he managed.

“Oh,” she replied, with a soft smile. “Leave-in conditioner. Does wonders.”

He smiled back. “I think – I think we should be friends.” Or any sort of association, really. Just please, teach me how to be so beautiful.

She put her chin in her delicate, artfully sculpted hand once again, but he wasn’t afraid anymore of her arm breaking under the weight of her mind.

“I’m game if you are.”

The statement held promises; suggestions. It scared him at the same time that it thrilled him.

“Oh, oh yes, ma’am. I’m Old Gregg.”

“They call me Eleanor. _Pleased_ to meet you.”

He marveled at how all the words her mouth said sounded like anyone ought to feel lucky for them to visit their ears. But since the man at the bar was playing around with the bottles further down, no one else was hearing them. How were they only for Gregg? Did she really think he was good enough for them?

He was smiling again, and it felt like his mouth hadn’t had that much exercise in a thousand years. He’d had so many smiles for Howard, his Howard, but he wouldn’t take any of them. Only looking back with those tiny eyes – dead, unfeeling. Indifferent. But this Eleanor, she smiled back. The expressions he gave to her, they were reflected back. And then he realized that he hadn’t talked in a while, only looked. The dry people, they didn’t like it when all you did was look, but just as he was about to say something else, she cut back in and let him keep his silence.

“Do you know what I think we need to do?” she asked.

“No, ma’am. What do we need to do?” He was ready to take any direction from her. She had seen the world. She knew the things. Maybe men would still break her heart, but he felt like she would know what to do.

“We need…to get _seriously messed-up_.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“No. I mean _messed-up_ ,” she reiterated, and again she was using her magical powers of making things sound so, so important, so he knew that they must be. “Messed-up like…just a big, huge, pile of mess.”

“I can do that,” he replied, and to prove it, he finished off his glass of Bailey’s. All of that beautiful brown, drained away. Down inside of him. But the nice man behind the bar would come back over once he realized that it was gone, along with the glass of dissolved lipstick. They had gone and escaped together, and left their owners back at the bar.

“Honey,” she said to the man, “we need some refills, and _quick_.”

Soon, there was more Bailey’s in his glass. Amazing, how she could make that happen. He usually waited for centuries. Excuse me, sir, good sir, won’t you please – oh, never mind, I see you’re serving other customers, I’ll just wait a moment, yes…

No, none of that. Not when you were with Eleanor. _Eleanor_. He repeated it in his head. It sounded like red velvet cake.

“That’s, ah…a pretty name you’ve got…Miss.” Mustn’t forget the formalities. 

Another smile, and so radiant, like the sun filtering down through the waves. So strong that it would make its way through no matter what pollution had gotten into the lake. 

“I named myself after Ms. Roosevelt, you know. Such a…such a _straightforward_ woman.”

“Yes. Exactly.”

He had no idea who Ms. Roosevelt was. He took another long, long sip of his drink. Beautiful. Rich. A bit like her. He supposed that was why he liked her. Creamy. Skin like…

“Oh, _dear_!” she cried, and she was holding onto him with her arms, and he realized that he had been touching her again. “This world!” she proclaimed. “It’s like a hard, unrelenting fuck! So _indulgently perfect_ when it’s happening, but then! Oh, then…where, Gregg, where do women like us fit?”

“I don’t…I don’t rightly know, sir. Ma’am,” he replied. And he didn’t. Still, he put his hand on her shoulder, hoping to provide some comfort. Soft shoulder, underneath silk fabric.

They drank their drinks in tandem, soothing liquid down into throats that needed it. Nice colors, drained through lipsticked mouths. It would help her, he thought. It helped him. 

But then she looked at him again and even if he’d had all the bottles of Bailey’s they’d ever made (blessed “they,” whoever had manufactured each and every tiny fragment of heaven all packaged up in nice little brown bottles) it wouldn’t have made her eyes any less blue. Blue like the sound your heart makes when tiny eyes burst it into a million pieces, and blue like the waves that wash over you and blue like the sky as it moves through the clouds, drifting but still the same sky, saying, “Hello, Gregg. Here I am. I’m the sky, and I’m still here.” Still here.

He didn’t think the sky should have to know all that sadness. So he didn’t think, he just pushed his lips forward and felt the damp and the heat. She made a soft noise and it was good, good like Bailey’s and good like the gentle flow of water. He didn’t care if she wasn’t Howard. She was here, and she was precious, and that was the thing that he cared about right now. Her lips met his with the same sticky passion for fighting, and once they touched they started to wrestle like they were angry. Her tongue was hot and slick and it forced its way into his mouth, and by the time it had made its way there he didn’t ever want it ever to leave. 

Her hands snaked around him, with their red talons, and they were strong and pushed him forward into her. He felt that they belonged there, on his back. They dodged all the sharp points of the lures stuck in throughout the years and only saw the shininess, the beauty. They gripped him like they would never let him go, and he succumbed. He did not want her to let go.

But she did, eventually. 

“Sweet transvestite Jesus!” she exclaimed. And then, a bit more shyly: “You’re a pretty good kisser.”

He bit his lower lip, still slick with her spit. “I might say the same for you.”

She didn’t waste any time after that confirmation, but darted right back into the fray. The nice man at the bar was giving them looks. He could see it, in the corner of his eye. Jealous. He didn’t have Miss Movie Star kissing him, did he? No sir. Still, another glass of Bailey’s, luxuriant liquid filling it full and then sliding across the wood of the bar towards him. Nice man knew what he liked. Would get a pretty penny at the end of the night, yes sir. 

But he couldn’t think about that right now. So soft, the lips against his. Insistent. Not Howard’s. No love in them, but a kind of want. More than he had ever had, at least. Hands on his body. How did one make it to his thigh? Sliding up, now. Making its way through the lace and silk. Feeling, fondling. Soon it would know all about the mix-up. He waited for the hand to take offense. Holding his breath, air inside the sacks of flesh that were supposed to have water inside of them. They were angry at him, demanding: where’s our food? Why’d you take us from our moist little world? He couldn’t give them any real answer. But he could tell her.

“I’ve got a mangina.”

“ _Oh_ ,” she said, and for a moment he knew that was the end. Except that then, she grabbed his wrist, palm warm around his rickety bones, and pulled his hand into her. It was warm and lumpy and strange.

“Y-you’ve…” was all he could manage. 

“ _Yes_ ,” she said in passionate assent, and the nice man at the bar didn’t look so nice now that they had their hands in each other’s secret places.

He looked at him. He looked back at her. “I think,” he said, “I think we ought to leave.”

“Oh, yes,” she said again, and for a moment he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to stand. But his legs had faith in him. “We’ve come this far, Gregg,” they said. “We’ll not fail you now.” And it renewed his confidence, and he pulled a shiny new coin out of his red patent leather purse to tip the nice man, whether or not he understood the politics of downstairs mix-ups. Then he took her hand, beautiful and dainty, pale with the red nail polish shot through it, gleaming and fantastic. It sparkled like her eyes and it fit so nice into his, even with the soft spread of webbing between his fingers.

“M’lady?” he offered. He could hardly believe that the words were coming out of his mouth, but there they were, floating around in the atmosphere. She caught them and devoured them with the utmost pleasure, then gave him a satiated smile. 

“Your place or mine, honeylumps?”


End file.
